Interview: Tom Rowley catches up with the British marksman who hates time off
from training and is coached by a member of Dubai's ruling dynasty

Shooting has always carried a royal seal of approval. From the Boxing Day shoot at Sandringham to summer on the grouse moors of Balmoral, the Windsors are wedded to the sport. The Princess Royal even celebrated her 21st birthday on a shoot.

For Peter Wilson, however, the regal association does not mean Highland picnics in the rain but the searing heat of Dubai.

That is where the 25 year-old, one of Team GB’s best hopes in the sport this summer, spends much of his year, training with a prince. For the man he calls coach, Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum, is a member of the desert city’s ruling dynasty as well as mentor to a young man from Dorset.

As Wilson explains, this is as remarkable to the people of the United Arab Emirates as if Prince William began to tutor Usain Bolt.

Well, not quite. Al Maktoum is, after all, a champion shooter in his own right, winning his country’s first ever Olympic gold in double trap at Athens in 2004. Now he is hoping his British protege can emulate the feat.

Wilson is certainly determined to do so, flying out to Dubai at every opportunity to keep his regal appointments. He is whisked through airport security, despite the rather conspicuous shotgun, with a royal warrant and then Al Maktoum picks him up from his hotel for the drive to the range.

“He’s not British and he’s a prince, so it’s a little different to the normal relationship that I would have with a mate,” Wilson says. “I knew he was a Maktoum, but I didn’t really register the presence he had in Dubai. I only really know that now – he is a prince and that is pretty mega.

“I try to stay as close to Ahmed as possible – it means if I’m lucky enough I get picked up by him when I’m on the way to the range. He often asks me over in the evenings for a bite to eat.” The menu on these occasions often features British pigeon. “I wouldn’t trust him if he was in London with a gun,” Wilson grins.

He is evidently entirely relaxed with Al Maktoum, who has coached him for the past four years. But then Wilson is a pretty relaxed sort of guy.

For a man at the peak of his profession – he was recently ranked No 1 in the world for double trap, and is currently second to the US’s Joshua Richmond – he is remarkably unassuming. We meet just a few weeks before the Olympics and yet he has given up his day to coach a few dozen enthusiasts at Bisley Shooting Ground, some of whom have not held a gun before. It is hard to imagine many other Olympians who would not only allow such access, but so evidently revel in it.

Taking aim: Peter Wilson in action

He shows his gun to a teenager he has just met, talking him through all its components and making him hold it, then he is joshing with an older shooter who has indulged in a little too much lunchtime wine – but Wilson is still happy to chat.

Without a press officer in sight, he speaks to every guest who stays behind for their chat with the champion before finally sitting down to the interview, an hour or so later.

But if he is tired of bantering with strangers, he does not let on. “I love it. It’s great – it’s an opportunity for me to get to know people who are like-minded and into the sport.”

He was inspired by watching Richard Faulds, who will compete alongside him in his fifth Games this summer, when he was a teenager, and is keen to pass on his enthusiasm.

“Just now I’ve had a long chat with a young guy and he’s really keen. Who knows, he could be the next Peter Wilson, the next Richard Faulds. If you don’t inspire a bit of hope and aspiration in young people then your sport is dead.”

His Twitter feed is equally endearing. Evidently unpublicised, one of Britain’s greatest shooters has an embarrassingly small number of followers.

Undeterred, he treats the medium like a teenage girl’s diary, with frequent explosions of joy meriting a rapid deployment of capitals.

“FIRST TWEET: 123” is followed by “99 FOLLOWERS: BOOM”, “I won *GOLD* at the Italian Championships” and, inevitably, on the day of his selection: “OLYMPIC GAMES: CHECK”.

But, lest we think all is levity for the former Millfield pupil who still lives on his parents’ farm, he insists there is a more serious side to his character.

“I leave my range Peter Wilson on the range,” he says. “I turn up to train and my training is very thorough and very strict. I train hard and then I allow myself to play hard.”

This is not difficult to substantiate: asked how he spends his days off, he raises an eyebrow. “I don’t. I train.” But if you were forced? “If I was forced to take a day off I would go back and train more. I have to have Christmas off and I have to have Monday off because the ranges won’t open for me but if I could train every day I would. As simple as that. I love what I do.”

It is not difficult to figure out why he is putting in so much work – and he does not dissemble when asked about his hopes for the Games, where Team GB has suffered in the sport in recent years.

“The goal is on the end of a bank and there is a big lake in front of me and there are stepping stones. I want to be the best I can be and there are lots of little stepping stones and obviously the end stepping stone is the Olympic gold medal,” he explains.

“Everyone keeps telling me that you’re more likely to do better at your second Olympics — this is my first Olympics but I’m not about to destroy my chances because someone tells me you only perform at your best in your second.” But that would not stop him performing well at another Games too, he stresses.

“If I win in London, I want to win in Rio, if I win in Rio, I want to win another. There is no end goal. The end goal is to be the best I can be and if that means I win at every Olympics then, as they say in Dubai, inshallah – God willing – that would just be wonderful.” As he slips into Arabic, the echo of Al Maktoum is evident again.

Fortunately for Wilson, his coach is equally single-minded.

“There is no grey area with Ahmed Al Maktoum. You are shooting badly and we will correct it or you are shooting brilliantly but you can get better. You are never perfect.”

In fact, regardless of his performance next month, his coach has put him on notice that he must return two weeks afterwards.

“He said, ‘If you have more than a month, I’ll be very upset’. He is a massive taskmaster and you are putting every bit of effort in you possibly can.”

Whether or not that effort pays off in London, then, Aug 16 will be just another ordinary day with his extraordinary coach.